Pogo Shares His Sampling Techniques for Creating Movie Mashups

The focus here on NFS may mostly be on the creation of original pieces of work, but that doesn't mean that we hold the art of the remixer or mash up artist in any lesser regard; it clearly takes skill to be able strip an existing piece of work down to its component parts and reassemble it as something brand new. One of the leading practitioners in this space is Australian electronic music artist Nick Bertke, better known as Pogo. Individually, and previously as a member of creative agency Reverse Enginears, Pogo has reworked films such as Alice in Wonderland, Mary Poppins, Terminator 2 and The Lord of the Rings, but personally I'd point to Lead Breakfast a Pulp Fiction remix as one of his best (unless you're wearing headphones, I'd save this till you're out of the office):

In an effort to shed some light on his dark art, Pogo has put out a tutorial video explaining how he uses a mix of hardware and software packages such as Adobe Audition to build a sample pallet which he then works with in Ableton Live or FLStudio to arrange the compositions. The tutorial's focus is solely on the technical aspects of his craft, not the creative:

I can't really tell you how to make music, I can't really tell you how to piece sounds together in a musical way. It's really just something you have to feel out and I do emphasise the word 'feel'. I don't think you should 'think' music into existence.

However, as an insight into the mechanics of how Pogo's remixes are built this makes for a decent jumping off point.

About a year ago Pogo also released a few Behind Pogo breakdown videos which step through the sounds and sections that comprise his tracks in FLStudio. Here are the original remixes followed by the tutorials:

And finally here's a breakdown of some of Pogo's unreleased and unheard remixes:

As the first tutorial shows, Pogo uses a mix of hardware and software to pull samples but there are several other ways to achieve the same results. Let us know in the comments about any tools or methods you use to build video remixes and be sure to share any compelling remix/mashup examples.

Howdy! I know this is kind of off topic but I was wondering which blog platform are
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hi i love pogo's stuff funny thing was i found him from someone doing a GOT song in his style so wanted to share that asi still love it myself and thanks to all for sharring above mashups they were great too thank you :) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uZV4R0M8ogM

As long as you're not selling the final project, you should be alright. The Fair Use clause allows for reproduction for educational or news reporting purposes. Also, if you create something that is indistinguishable from the original work (if an 'average listener' can't tell where the sample came from) you should be alright.

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